I recently heard from a wife who confided to me that whenever she and her husband disagreed or went through a rough patch in their marriage, the husband would pull out what the wife called the “license card.” She told me, “Whenever the going gets tough, my husband says he’s going to leave. He’s packed his bags before, but he’s never really left. Still, this hurts and I’m getting tired. How I can make him see how old these threats are getting? At the same time, I’m afraid that one day soon, he’ll actually move on and walk out the door. I’m not sure what to do or how to handle this.”

This type of correspondence is not that uncommon. I hear a lot of comments like this. And I can absolutely relate to these wives. This is a very difficult position to be in. It’s hard to move forward and improve things with the constant threat of it hanging over your head. You may start to feel like you are walking on eggshells or that you have to edit yourself out or hold yourself back in some way. Therefore, it is highly recommended to consider being proactive and addressing this before things deteriorate further. I will discuss more about this matter in the following article.

Ask him to stop making constant threats to leave you and the marriage: It is true that I do not personally know this couple. But from what little the wife told me, two immediate facts jumped out and seemed more important to me. First, despite the husband’s repeated threats, she had not left. She was still there, repeating the same old things. This tells us that he is not 100% committed to leaving or that he has not yet reached the breaking point or the place where it is feasible or comfortable to move on.

The second thing that was important was that the husband kept repeating the threats. Now, the wife was very frustrated with this, but one possibility was that the husband was repeating or speeding up his words because nothing was changing or improving and this was the only way he knew to try to get the response he wanted. Sometimes people keep repeating the same patterns out of frustration. And sometimes they do it because they don’t know any other way.

But whatever the reason for this negative cycle, I felt that the wife could gain some ground by addressing this issue frankly and with empathy. It was going to be very difficult for the two of them to get on the same page when he kept pulling out. So the next time he started the “I’m leaving you” talk, I felt the wife should have asked him to sit down and talk about this for a minute.

With a pause in action, the wife might consider telling the husband that they both knew this was a road they had traveled many times before. And yet, nothing was really changing, except that they were both getting frustrated with the same old course of events that never turned out the way either of them really wanted. I suggested that the wife offer to make a deal with her husband. She would genuinely listen to why he felt this way and would make a very honest effort to address and make things better if he would stop threatening to leave her every time the going got tough.

Understand the opportunity that has presented itself and take positive steps to stop this cycle: I understood why the wife doubted that she was in such a good position, but I had to admit to her that there were some advantages to it. Almost daily, I hear from wives who have been served with divorce papers or come home to an empty house and are missing a husband (because he’s gone) seemingly without warning. These women would have loved a warning period and a chance to put things right before this action was taken.

So while the wife was tired of all this, she had to admit that she still had a chance to make things better and save the marriage. This was an advantage, as was the fact that despite all his empty words and posturing, the husband was still there. Clearly, he was not sure that he wanted to leave, but he was sure that he wanted to change something that he was not achieving, which is why this cycle repeated itself.

Once the wife was able to see this, she was willing to approach things differently. But, before she went ahead wanting to make any drastic changes, I told her it would be a good idea to focus on reconnecting. There was a lot of underlying resentment and anger and I felt that the changes and efforts might not last if they tried to work things out while both people were still a little lukewarm with each other.

Do you remember when you first got together and your problems were always little quarrels that passed quickly? This is because they were deeply connected and did not want to let anything derail that process. Sure, things change and people mature. But often, you’ll find that if you can get to a place where you feel genuine affection and empathy for your spouse, resolving the remaining issues becomes much easier, and you’re much less likely to continue to listen to threats that neither one of you of you are listening to more anyway.